PBS Newshour posted a story about an art project on hunger in contemporary America.
“Hunger Through My Lens” has a dual mission: to empower people who are living in poverty and to promote awareness about hunger issues. Sponsored by the non-profit group Hunger Free Colorado, the program gives digital cameras to food stamp recipients and asks them to chronicle what it’s like to be hungry in America.
Fascinating photos, cool project. It deserves a look: HERE.
David Brooks published a very thoughtful essay in yesterday’s New York Times, applying the lesson of ‘the prodigal son’ to our current social divisions.
He argues, in brief, that there are two prodigal sons in the famous parable, not one. There’s the younger son who blows his inheritance, repents of his bad choices, and crawls back to his father, seeking only a menial job and a place in the stable. There’s also the older son, the prig, who judges his younger brother harshly and wants to punish him for his misdeeds.
Brooks points out that only the father realizes that both sons are wounded, not just one. Only love can restore either of them to wholeness. Not judgment. Not hectoring about ‘bad life choices’. Not efforts to regulate others’ behavior. Just love and acceptance. Brooks presents this as a powerful parable for our times.
Those of us who have made the ‘right’ choices need to overcome our tendency to judge and punish the homeless, the poor, and the weak, even if they have contributed to the mess they’re in. We mustn’t reserve our love and help for just the blameless victims. If we do, we become less than human.
Read the essay HERE.
I found a news article on CNN today that relates perfectly to what we have been discussing in class for the past week. This article discusses some of the problems encountered during the P.I.T. (Point-in-Time) count of Camden County, New Jersey. Camden is the poorest city in the U.S. and has an unemployment rate of 13%. Yet last year’s P.I.T. count found only “589 homeless people in the 513,000-person county.” This makes it the perfect example of an area with a very understated homeless count.
As we’ve seen throughout this past week, there are many problems with the current system of P.I.T. counting. P.I.T. counts takes place within a 24-hour period in the last week of January at least every other year. These counts are required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for each county, but they are not funded by the government. There’s the first problem – without proper funding, of course we are not going to get an accurate count. Furthermore, as the homeless in the CNN video repeated many times, homeless people often don’t want to be seen. There are many places that probably go unchecked by counters simply because they can’t see them. There are plenty of homeless sleeping in cars, couchsurfing, living in abandoned buildings or “tent cities,”and hopping back and forth from the street to various family members’ homes. All of these people fit HUD’s description of homeless. Yet they most often are not being counted in the “homeless census.”
Obviously, it is close to impossible to get a completely accurate count of homeless, since the numbers change from day to day as it is. But as shown by this article and the other data we have seen this week, there is a great importance in improving the P.I.T. count. The homeless are being under-counted and therefore misrepresented. These counts determine how much federal aid is given to the shelter systems, so they directly affect the people being misrepresented.
Listening to all the presentations given in class, really opened my eyes. Many of them touched on similar conflicts and struggles of homelessness which showed how prevalent these issues are in our society. In everything that we have learned so far in class including documentary clips, texts and book presentations my views of homelessness have changed. My enitre life I have grown up in the suburbs where I do not see the effects of homelessness and poverty. Realizing the truths behind homelessness had made me think about what I can do to help.
After graduation I am planning on becoming an Elementary School teacher. As a teacher, I will be faced with many obstacles involving the life of my students at home. Some might come from families who are in poverty and are under priveledged. As a teacher it is my responsibility that I give them as much care and help in the classroom as I can. While reading Homeless Mothers by Deborah Connolly, I saw the effects that povery can have on children whose parents are under priveledged. Some do not get the care or event he love that every child deserves.
I recently read an article in the LA Times about a LA Unified School District giving back to the homeless. This article brought me hope that our schools are giving back. The students in these schools were very passionate about helping in any way that they could and one student said “”Just looking at them you can tell there is so much need and they’re in so much pain,” from this you can see how this student is becoming an advocate for helping the homeless. The article mentions how many of the students vowed to return to the shelters and to encourage friends to raise money for the area”, showing how these students really do want to make a difference. As a future teacher, this makes me very proud of students today realizing the struggles in the world and realizing that they have the power to help.
To buy Homeless Mothers by Deborah Connolly visit this site: http://www.amazon.com/Homeless-Mothers-Face-Women-Poverty/dp/0816632820/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1392069254&sr=8-1&keywords=homeless+mothers+deborah+connolly
To read the LA Times article click on this link: http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-student-volunteer-homeless-20140209,0,2391622.story#axzz2sxOq6XPM
Los Angeles Times columnist Sandy Banks published a beautiful story this morning, about a homeless man she knew well. Eddie Dotson had been living on L.A.’s streets for many years by the time Banks met him. He was polite to everyone and helpful to others. He built a lovely and comfortable dwelling out of scraps and others’ throw-aways; he would rebuilt it without complaint when the street cleaning crews destroyed it (as they did every few months). Banks remembers his patience and tenderness.
Banks wrote about him in 2009, which is the first that Dotson’s family in Austin, Texas, had heard about him in years. They came out to L.A. and brought him home. He died last week, so Banks wrote a moving essay about him and about how much he taught her. Read it on Page A2 of this morning’s Times.
I want to praise Banks for her large heart and her clear prose. I also want to praise the Times for hiring columnists — she is one of several — who show us that homeless people are human beings.
I recently discovered through tumblr a project known as Homeward Bound, which is affiliated with Woodgreen Foundation and is a part of United Way Toronto. This particular project focuses on the life of single mothers struggling with poverty, and suggests giving these women’s problems the proper representation and time.
I think these magazine manipulations are powerful, because a significant portion of society does care about celebrity gossip and tabloid news. I think this campaign cleverly critiques our society’s obsession with the wealthy and famous and flips this consumption of popular culture on its head.
No doubt if we were exposed to the reality of poverty on a daily basis as we waited in lines at the grocery store where our eyes inevitably wander, we as a society would be much more enraged about the problem.
[For more examples of the campaign’s pictures, click here: (w) (x) (y) (z).]
This blog post from the Huffington Post provides an interesting insight on a possible solution to homelessness. What Joel John Roberts argues is that the key aspect of solving homelessness is a sense of community. Only three weeks into this course, we have already seen several examples of the importance of a simple human connection. A perfect quote regarding this comes from the film “Taylor’s Campaign” (1997): “we are not just looking for a handout, but are looking for just a hand.” Though charity and “handouts” help, people do not want to be seen as a project; something to be fixed and then forgotten about. The homeless want to be a part of the community, just like everyone else. The only way to really help these people is to extend our kindness and humanness to them. The program described in the article has made a lot of progress in housing homeless people, yet the author/agency director even acknowledges that it needs to be taken a step further in order to maintain this progress. As Roberts states, “A weekly visit from a case worker, or an open case management office in the building, does not create an intimate, supportive community for a person who has been isolated on the streets for years.” He stresses the importance of a supportive and warm community that can ease homeless back into housed living. People too often forget how easy it is to make a person feel like a human being. Solutions to homelessness need to take a step further and include humanity and caring.
This isn’t specifically about homelessness, but it is a cool example of how educated people can use tech to help others. Kyle Wanamaker (the son of one of my former students), organized a ‘hackaton’ to develop apps, programs, and other software to solve ordinary people’s problems. One example: an app that helps poor people figure out where to vote — and overcome the hurdles that richer folk have put in their way.
I wonder what the rest of us can do to help poor people, including homeless people, take control of their own lives.
Check it out: http://m.blackenterprise.com/p.p?m=b&a=rp&id=1431813934&postId=1431813934&postUserId=2609744
Los Angeles Times columnist Sandy Banks published a memorial to Chester Willis, a homeless and well-loved street person in this morning’s paper. She talks about Willis’ life, his friendships, and his care for animals. Definitely worth reading. Find it here …
